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cool
Apparently that wasn’t enough, because my phone rings two seconds later. I hesitate for a moment before answering, but as usual Branley gets her way.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she says back, her voice the version I like, pitched low and normal. It’s not the Branley who wants something, high and pouty.
“It’s no big deal about Hancock. I never thought you were going there just because of me anyway,” I say.
“Other people did,” she says, and I can’t argue with that. I open my mouth to tell her that Alex will be at Hancock just in case she hadn’t heard, but she keeps going.
“I’ve got some of your stuff,” she says, which isn’t a huge surprise. I’ve dumped shit in her locker more than once, so I didn’t have to walk all the way to mine before lunch. We’ve carpooled for years. She probably has more of my own stuff than I do.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, all kinds of shit,” she says. “There’s, like, a pile. Couple of shirts, a jump drive, some hats. Um . . . at least one pair of boxers.”
“Just the one?” I ask before I can help it, a smile twisting my lips.
She giggles. “I washed everything.”
“Thank God,” I shoot back, and we’re both laughing.
“Anyway . . . I wanted to get it all back to you,” Branley says. “Can you meet me out at the church in about half an hour?”
“I’ll swing by and pick it up.”
“That’s not a good idea,” she says. “I . . . I said some pretty not-nice things about you to Mom and Dad. They’re not very happy with you right now.”
I sigh. Branley’s mom and dad have been my second parents my whole life. Having them not very happy with me makes me feel like shit.
“Give it time,” she says. “It’ll blow over.”
“Yeah, I’ll meet you in thirty,” I say.
“Cool.”
She’s about to hang up when I stop her. “Hey, Bran?”
“Yeah?”
“We good?”
“Oh yeah,” she says, and I can hear the smile. “You and me, we’re going to be all right.”
56. PEEKAY
A girls’ night with Alex is never normal, mostly because she’s one girl who hates to be indoors.
Even in the dead of winter, she’d drag me into the backyard and start a fire in the pit, our fronts too hot and our backs too cold as we passed a bottle back and forth. More than once she took me out to the state park, indifferent to my complaining as I trudged behind her on trails so steep wildlife were the only ones using them. But a girls’ night with Alex always brought peace with it too, and that’s something I’ve been looking for lately.
All anybody wants to talk about right now is endings. School is almost out. Last day of senior year. A phase of our lives is almost over. An era is drawing to a close. I’m really sick of well-meaning advice from people who like to remind me that they were teens not that long ago.
Everybody else sees a finish line ahead and I’m stuck on beginnings. My heart tells me that I like Park a little more than we agreed upon when we started seeing each other, and as I glance at Alex as she drives I feel an even deeper sting.
It’s hard to believe we’ve been friends for only a year. This girl knows everything about me, has seen me at my best and worst. We’re at the point in our friendship where we can be quiet together and it’s not awkward, but we can also both sing in the car very loudly and not be embarrassed because we both sound like shit.
It’s like that. And I’m suddenly very aware that it’s as temporary as Park and me. She’s headed halfway across the state to Hancock, and I’m going halfway the other direction to the Lutheran school. Sure, we can text and email, make promises to try to get together soon or when we’re home on break. Then when we do go out it’ll just be an update, like a folded letter in a Christmas card—this is what I did since I talked to you last time; now you know. Then we’ll do it again the year after that, each meeting a bullet-point conversation to keep each other informed, but never intimate.
